It’s April, supposedly the cruelest month, but after a winter that seemed like 150 days of March, how bad can it be? After all, April means spring, Daylight-Saving Time, and warmer temperatures. That's not so cruel. And April is when the umpire yells, “Play Ball” — in some cases with Major League Baseball’s steroid investigators. still, it's nice to think about heading back to the ballpark.

Of course, April is also tax time, when all but a microscopic slice of society too wealthy to be bothered with such piddling matters ante up so that George W. Bush can pay the vig on his five-year hocking of America. So fork it over lest Uncle Scam be left unable to enrich his cronies and perpetuate the wholesale massacre of the Iraqi people, and while he’s in the neighborhood, maybe the Iranians, too. Speak out in protest, and you may quickly learn that it’s also latter-day Scoundrel Time, the label Lillian Hellman pasted on another era when fascistic character assassins operated unchallenged by those who knew better.

Anyway, it’s time for a bit of spring cleaning — time to round up the national experience and put the embarrassing low points of First Quarter 2006 neatly on the curb for pickup and disposal into the dustbin of history. Pray that we do not recycle.

Blasted republicansIn his State of the Union address, in January, George W. Bush told us, “Abroad, our nation is committed to an historic, long-term goal — we seek the end of tyranny in our world.” Which is kind of like the producers of American Idol calling for the restoration of dignity in the performing arts. The event marked the first official public appearance of Justice Joseph Alito, who had just been confirmed to the Supreme Court. Alito looked understandably woozy after a meteoric two-generation ascension from struggling immigrant to robed enemy of the working class. A few weeks later, the man Alito looks to as his “unitary executive” (your one-stop fop for all your authoritarian needs!) attended Coretta Scott King’s funeral. Republicans and several media wags (but I repeat myself) were shocked, shocked!, that speakers used the occasion to nonviolently point out how much the prez and his administration suck. For his part, Bush got through the solemn affair by graciously smirking whenever the orators indicted his policies.

This winter, Dick Cheney starred in the modern fable, “The Emperor’s New Fluorescent Orange Clothes.” Cheney is that most deadly of predators in any forest or field: the well-armed fat cat.

Having learned to hunt by murdering fowl Pavlovian-ly conditioned to associate shotgun blasts with the distribution of corn pellets, these titans of government and business haven’t the patience to do things like wait until a bird distinguishes itself from a human — by, say, flying — before pulling the trigger. Had our vice-president followed this simple rule, he’d never have shot one of his Texas hunting companions because, well, pigs don’t fly.

Goodbye, cruel America Toward the end of 2006, we woke up to the glad news that Chile’s former strongman Augusto Pinochet had saved everyone the trouble of hanging his sickly carcass for war crimes and atrocities by dying of a heart attack.

Good Stuff News and exposés about the Iraq war have been draining us mosquito-style over the years.

Wish list [1] An MBTA Red Line station without a broken escalator. [2] Someone in the White House who at least pretends we’re still looking for Osama.

Worse than the chief? As a former Texan, I knew what a loser W was, but the Hammer was in many ways worse.

Keep the Internet free and open to all The Internet may not be free for much longer. The Broadband, "God Save the Internet" (mp3) "The Death of the Internet." Commentary by COANews.org Support the Internet Freedom Preservation Act? Email your senator.

Taxi to the Dark Side In 2002, an Afghani jitney driver named Dilawar took off with two customers and disappeared.

Cheney's latest crime As if there were any doubt, the latest CIA scandal once again reminds the nation that whatever former vice-president Dick Cheney touched turned to slime.

Political cartoons Among its hordes of firsts, The Simpsons helped transplant politicians from the cartoon funny pages to our television sets.

Quotes and numbers, March 31, 2006 6: n umber of nights in a row that Tribe, a popular lesbian/bi/queer night, will be hosted at Felt and Vinalia in coordination with the NCAA Women’s Final Four, which takes place this week in Boston.